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Research Interests:

Information technologies (IT) together with the development of formalized model-based approaches for analysis offer great potential to deal with the complexity of construction projects.  My research builds on the previous work done on integrated product and proves models and extends it so as to model an information-rich history of a project and a facility to support decision-making during construction planning and execution, and facility management.  While working on creating such a project history model, I leverage the data that can be collected using emerging sensing and data capture technologies.

 

Creating information-rich project history models and the corresponding analyses starts with having reliable plans and estimates prior to construction, followed by complete situation awareness and assessment achieved through an information- and data-rich as-built model during construction.  My research activities to date can be grouped under the following two categories:

 

(1) Approaches for achieving reliable construction schedules and estimates

Within this area, my students and I have done work on the following topics

-         Identifying and managing time-space conflicts on construction sites

-         Modeling and reasoning about equipment spaces

-         Distributed-scheduling on construction sites.

-         Information dependency analysis of the agents within construction project teams (http://www.ce.cmu.edu/~ess).

 

(2) Approaches for situation awareness and assessment via information-rich as-built models.

Within this area, I and my students have been working on the following topics:

-         Sensor-based Defect Management on Construction Sites (http://www.ce.cmu.edu/~itr).

-         Embedded Commissioning (http://www.ce.cmu.edu/~bc).

-         Development of construction project histories to support cost estimating

Active Research Projects:

 

Completed Research Projects:

 

Students Advised within Research Capacity:

PhD Students (here is my group’s web site):

Current PhD Students

Anu Pradhan,  Formalization of multi-source data fusion to support construction productivity monitoring 05/2009 (expected).

 

Pingbo Tang, Automated feature extraction from data collected by laser scanners, 05/2009 (expected).

 

Fernanda Leite, Computational Support for First Responders. (co-advising with Prof. Omer Akin) 05/2009 (expected)

 

Asli Akcamete, Maintaining and updating building information models throughout the life cycle of facilities (co-advising with Prof. Jim Garrett), 12/2009 (expected)

 

Guzide Atasoy, TBD, 05/2010 (expected)

 

Past PhD Students

Jan Reinhardt,  Navigational Models For Effective And Efficient Interaction With Integrated Product And Process Models On Construction Sites (co-advised with Prof. Jim Garrett) December 2003.  Dr. Reinhardt is currently the Program Manager of Virtual Design and Construction at Turner Construction.

Esin Ergen, Formalization of life-cycle data management of pre-engineered components using advanced tracking technologies, (co-advised with Dr. Rafael Sacks), 12/2005.  Dr. Ergen is currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Frank Boukamp, Modeling of and Reasoning about Construction Specifications for Automated Defect Detection. 05/2006, Dr. Boukamp is currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of Illinois, at Urbana-Champaign.

 

Kevin Tantisevi, Formalization and Automation of Generation of Equipment Spaces on Construction Sites, 05/2006.  Dr. Tantisevi is currently a software engineer at Bentley Systems, Inc.

Hongjun Wang, (co-advised with Prof. Jim Garrett). Domain-Oriented Semi-Automated Model Matching for Supporting Building Commissioning-Related Data Exchange, 05/2006.  Dr. Wang is currently a software engineer at ANSYS.

Chris Gordon, A Formalism and a Framework for Planning of Sensor-Based Inspections on Construction Sites, (co-advising with Prof. Jim Garrett) , 12/2006.  Dr. Gordon is currently a tenure track Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at Southern University of Illinois at Edwardsville.

Semiha Kiziltas. An automated approach for developing integrated model-based construction project histories to support estimation of activity production rates, 05/2008.  Dr. Kiziltas will be a tenure track Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.

 

 

MS (with thesis/research projects) Students:

DeWitt Latimer,  Estimating the Cost of Software Components in Civil System development Using Function Point Analysis, 05/2002. (co-advised with Prof. Jim Garrett)

Kevin Tantisevi, An Approach for Automating the generation of the Generation of a Simulation Model of Construction Processes from a Schedule, 05/2002.

Subhash Tuladhar, Distributed Constraint-based Scheduling on Construction Sites.” August 2004.

Sharad Oberoi. “Functional Requirements for CAD and GIS integration.” May 2006.

 

Jerry Himes. “Situation Awareness for Lean Construction.” May 2006.

 

Xing Wu. “ Model-based Sensor-Enabled Water Management.” May 2006.

 

Ziqi Chen, Data fusion to support facility management.” August 2007.

 

Saurabh Taneja (being advised jointly with Prof. Jim Garrett) Formalization of data fusion to support facility managers and first responders (12/2008).


 

Undergraduate Students:

Thomas Hendrickson. “Experiments for assessing the reliability of RFID signal strength.” Summer, 2006. (REU student)

 

Malena M. Yablinsky. “Evaluation of Laser Scanner Data from Construction Job Sites using a Commercially Available System.” 05/2005-2006. (REU student)

 

Arthur Goh. “Utilization of RFID tags for storing and accessing environmental impact information.” 2004-2005 (Honor’s Thesis); co-advised with Prof. Cliff Davidson.

 

Allison Spare. “Construction Inspection Process Models.” Summer 2004.

 

Sarah Schrass, A framework for Classification of Defects on Construction Sites. Summer, Fall, 2002, Spring, 2003.

Martha Alunkal, Assessing the Role of Surveyors and Inspectors on Construction Sites. Summer, 2002.

Linda Wang, Network Organizations and Construction Project Teams. Spring 2003 (Honor's Thesis).

 

Last saved by B.A. on 09/03/2007.